A Soviet filmmamker's vision of future space exploration

Tarkovsky’s 1972 sci-fi epic, Solaris, takes a long time to get in gear but eventually it get ahold of you as you become gradually aware that it’s not only a drama about space exploration but also about what makes us human. In short, a psychologist sometime in the far future is sent to a space station in a distant galaxy now down to a crew of three (initially it appears it had a crew of hundreds) to see if the mission - observation of a planetary ocean that seemed to teem w life forms - should terminate. When he arrives he learns that one of the three had committed suicide w a warning that anyone on the station would be likely to suffer intolerable hallucinations. The man envisions the appearance of his late wife - but learns she is an inhuman specter generated by the oceanic life force. He decides he would live w her and love her even knowing she is inhuman - and we can see that this concept was foundational to other works, notably the great Battlestar Gallactica. So this is a movie w weird and provocative ideas, and it’s also fun to watch to see how Russians in the 1970s envisioned future space exploration: the donut shaped space station looks kind of like an unsuccessful disco club w cheap crystal decor and vinyl wall coverings, and no one imagined the miniaturization of technology, as there are hundred of red computers that look like 1970s boom boxes lining the central corridor (plus a hilarious attempt to re-create a British-style library and reading room. Some beautiful photography throughout, notably a drive along Russian highways into the night and 30 second of weightlessness aboard the station - plus many provocative discussions among the stressed and maybe unbalanced remaining members of the crew, the psychologist, and his “wife,” human, hardly human.


(Note: Failure in transmission yesterday, posted today